oming up close to my stool,
and regarding me with a shrewd though blear-eyed gaze; "many do. Do you,
John?"

"Come," said I, "don't ask such nonsense. You know better than that,
Uncle Ben. Or else, I am sorry for you. I want you to live as long as
possible, for the sake of--" Here I stopped.

"For the sake of what, John? I knew it is not for my own sake. For the
sake of what, my boy?"

"For the sake of Ruth," I answered; "if you must have all the truth. Who
is to mind her when you are gone?"

"But if you knew that I had gold, or a manner of getting gold, far more
than ever the sailors got out of the Spanish galleons, far more than
ever was heard of; and the secret was to be yours, John; yours after me
and no other soul's--then you would wish me dead, John." Here he eyed me
as if a speck of dust in my eyes should not escape him.

"You are wrong, Uncle Ben; altogether wrong. For all the gold ever heard
or dreamed of, not a wish would cross my heart to rob you of one day of
life."

At last he moved his eyes from mine; but without any word, or sign, to
show whether he believed, or disbelieved. Then he went to a chair, and
sat with his chin upon the ledger-desk; as if the effort of probing me
had been too much for his weary brain. "Dreamed of! All the gold ever
dreamed of! As if it were but a dream!" he muttered; and then he closed
his eyes to think.

"Good Uncle Reuben," I said to him, "you have been a long way to-day,
sir. Let me go and get you a glass of good wine. Cousin Ruth knows where
to find it."

"How do you know how far I have been?" he asked, with a vicious look
at me. "And Cousin Ruth! You are very pat with my granddaughter's name,
young man!"

"It would be hard upon me, sir, not to know my own cousin's name."

"Very well. Let that go by. You have behaved very badly to Ruth. She
loves you; and you love her not."

At this I was so wholly amazed--not at the thing itself, I mean, but at
his knowledge of it--that I could not say a single word; but looked, no
doubt, very foolish.

"You may well be ashamed, young man," he cried, with some triumph over
me, "you are the biggest of all fools, as well as a conceited coxcomb.
What can you want more than Ruth? She is a little damsel, truly; but
finer men than you, John Ridd, with all your boasted strength and
wrestling, have wedded smaller maidens. And as for quality, and
value--bots! one inch of Ruth is worth all your seven feet put
together."

Now I am n